A clay pot with some faux (but very real looking) flowers if you lack sunlight to grow a pot of flowers, an older wind-up alarm clock, some glass containers with soap/cleaning products or "pretend) cleaning products, a little easel with a family picture, an older smaller bird cage, miniature primitive furniture pieces, a coal hod filled with cleaning brushes.

An old washstand pitcher and bowl. A jar filled with old fashioned wooden clothes pins. A basket to hold lost socks.

You can buy all sizes of fat jars with screw on lids, they'd look really cute sitting in a row filled with laundry related things, even ribbons and buttons. Walmart is where I found one of my favorite jars. I spray painted the lid so it would match.

I agree with Patricia, if you do get some natural light in there, plants are always nice to have.

I only have one small window so any plants would have to be artificial. Thank you for the great ideas! I'm going to see if I can swipe anything from other rooms too : )
There's a couple of pintrest projects I've been wanting to try. Painted mason jars and fabric covered galvanized pails/tubs.

I don't have shelves as you do but have 2 vintage washboards and 6 vintage metal sock stretchers hanging on the walls. Also a large glass canister with various types of wooden clothespins sits on the counter. I've also sometimes had canisters with detergent powders but now use liquids so no longer have that.

If this is a room you use to arrange flowers you might place all your vases on a shelf. Also a basket with shears and any other floral arrangement necessities.

If you have, or like, vintage tin containers (tea, coffee, cookies, etc.) they make good storage containers and are decorative.

I like to see collections of birdhouses or birdcages in a laundry room for some strange reason.

Depending on other available storage in the room you could put anything you use for laundry care in baskets on the shelves. Since I don't have shelves but do have a drawer, I keep scissors used primarily to cut tags off new clothes prior to washing, plastic bags and ties, and some floral arranging stuff there. Needs a good cleaning out at the moment.

Small prints/paintings of appropriate subjects, or even just whatever you like, look good propped or on easels. Anything that makes the room a more pleasant place to work in.

I have a shelf up high that has 3 vintage birdcages and 2 white pitchers. On the counter, I have 2 old, black irons that belonged to family members.

DD2 has an odd shaped glass jar with green metal lid full of colorful wooden spools of thread - I found at a local antique store.

You could have jars with clothes pins, etc needed and just for display.

We live in a horse community, and the dresser in my laundry room has horse related items on the top.

I hope Mustangs sees this post. She has a laundry room in which one wouldn't mind washing and ironing.

I was kind of locked into red for accent colors. I enjoyed decorating the laundry room and have made some changes since these pictures were taken. Have fun with it! I don't think there is as much pressure as decorating a living room.

I was lucky to come across the washing lady picture on the internet, then found a frame at Goodwill that I painted red. I also painted her hat and cloth red to fit in to the color scheme.

The canisters that I keep soap in are from Walmart with flea market letters.

I have since replaced the Formica with a cseasar stone counter top for cheap--it was a remnant.

Thank you all for the great ideas. Sometimes you just need some help to get going.
I'm thinking I can pretty much just put odds and ends stuff that I like in there and since I'm about the only one that will ever see it that should be fine...do you agree?
Also forgot to add that two of the shelves have pegs to hang things on.

I was just going to suggest Mustangs' laundry room, too! It's my long-time fav.
Our entire house, except for my laundry room, is Southwestern. For that I rebelled and went instead with nostalgic reminders from my own childhood suumerhouse on Lake St.Clair in Ontario. Wonderful, happy times! I found this great retro clothespin bag on of Ebay. It brings back a lot of memories. To find a lot of great ideas, you might try typing "laundry room" into the search engine on Ebay or Etsy.

I love Mustangs' retro cannisters, but I have all closed cabinets in my laundry room and didn't go with any. I did buy this cute retro clock on Amazon, though.

I found 8x10" wood frames in the same green as the clock and had old photos of our summer house and of my family and I there when I was a kid, printed up in black & white to hang on the walls. It would be easy to paint frames the perfect color with craft paint if you can't find ones that work for you. Here's one of mine. That's me on the left, with my sis. Mom kept our hair in tight French braids because we were always in the water at the lake or covered with sand on the beach there (LOL).

In our kitchen there, my grandmother kept her collection of Fruitware and Cottageware. I adored it~ and her~ and she left it all to me. Thatched roof cottage pieces look out of place in my Spanish kitchen, but in my nostalgic laundry room they look perfectly at home. I have all of my pieces displayed above the upper cabs (this pic is just one of 3 sections of them all). They're still easy enough to access when I want to use them on our breakfast table, but seeing them every day makes me very happy and brings back a lot of wonderful memories. Perhaps you have similar pieces from your own childhood or a favorite place that you can use in yours. The bottom line for me is that doing laundry is not fun, so at least now I love the room I have to do it in!

This post was edited by lynninnewmexico on Fri, Jan 18, 13 at 19:38

Thank you so much for sharing the beautiful pictures of your laundry rooms. I love the red accents and the green in yours lynninnewmexico is very similar to the green in mine, love the personal touch too.

Allison, you just gave me a great idea. We have an old cast-iron iron which belonged to my husbands DGM, but I'm going to put it in the laundry room. Duh, why didn't I think of that before? lol

That's funny because prior to my shelves I had mine on my old singer. The laundry room just seems to be an appropriate place for those old irons I guess.

luckygal - How did you hang your washboards? I'd love to see a picture!

my laundry room decor

Adorable! Thank you.

lol Oakley. I did the same thing for 4.5 years, so don't feel so bad.

BTW Lynne, Talk about retro, I love the picture of you and your sis.

I plan to frame and hang my favorites of my children's infant clothes. I never got around to doing so in their nurseries, and I know they wouldn't like them in their rooms now.

I had that same thought. We brought my son and daughter home in the same outfits we came home in and I thought it might be nice to display them.

Oh no I am now suffering with a case of laundry room envy. Love the idea of hanging kids first clothes. Do post pics when you are done.